The Nation Newspaper

Category: Oyinkan Medubi

  • The Giant who wielded the big stick on an ant

    Unfortunately, whenever the wake-up calls on our hospitals have come from the doctors, the typical response from government has been to display its fangs and threaten to tear all concerned to pieces. How indescribably inane!

    One day last week, I went into a shop to purchase a perishable food item. I watched as the salesperson blew with his mouth into paper bags in order to properly open the bags and wrap the sold items. This continued until I pointed out that in an Ebola state, he would have succeeded in distributing the virus to several homes. That got me thinking.

    In Nigeria, there are just too many casual acts and contacts that are so insanitary even the bacterial world are beginning to despair whether they will ever get to leave this country and try other lands. There are the casual handshakes. I could not have given or taken anything less than five during the week on reflex before remembering Ebola. There are the banisters we touch to assist weak bones to climb staircases. Then, the biggest of all, the exchange of goods that takes place thousands of times per second in this country. Hands touch while handbags are moving from one person to the other. Use antiseptic, you say? What about the thousands of God’s own tiny but deadly creatures which exchange homes in droplets of spittle when people speak to each other? Is there an antiseptic for that?

    There is no doubt that a little warning preparation would have saved us many agonies over this Ebola outbreak. True, there are some among us who would not bat an eyelid if the devil were to drive down hereabouts and told them personally to beware of a catastrophic epidemic coming from his kingdom. They would guffaw and go on sharing cups and needles.

    By and large though, the rest of us would have been grateful for that head-up from the ministry of health on the Ebola crisis. I know that the doctor and nurses at the clinic that tried to treat Sawyer would have. They could have been saved this agony and death. Now, I understand that some are dead and some are dying for doing the right thing. Sadly, reports from newspapers are saying that for doing their duties, the quarantined survivors of that Sawyer contact are being neglected and abandoned in filthy, unsanitary circumstances with no amenities. They are cut off from what used to be their world. Just imagine right now the psychological state they are in: the terror, confusion and mental turmoil they are roiling in. Imagine right now how much gratitude they have towards the country they served which is now giving them disservice. Imagine right now what prayers they are saying for the country. We could have saved them from going down this torturous path if our ministry of health had been working like it should. Their families have the right to demand an answer from this country in the law courts.

    The most dangerous reasoning so far on the matter of the nurse who escaped to her family from quarantine has come from our national officials. They say that because the nurse had not shown any signs of succumbing to the disease, her fellow travelers are not in any danger. Now, that is just so bizarre, because many of them could have touched what she touched; taken droplets from the air she breathed or from a cough or a sneeze from her innocently. And we say they are in no danger, or in danger of infecting others? How unutterably careless can we be?

    I think what everyone agrees on so far is the fact that we were not only not ready, we even now still lack the facilities that can sufficiently take care of victims; you know, something that indicates some attempt to keep in step with modern civilization. There we were, with our hospitals being no more than ‘mere consulting rooms’ as described thirty years ago, and we all are still in denial about it today. Over those thirty years, I cannot count the number of times doctors have gone on strike to impress on all, government and masses alike, that hospitals need to be equipped so that they would no longer stand by and watch people die because of one lack or the other. Unfortunately, whenever these calls have come, the typical response from government has been to display its fangs and threaten to tear all concerned to pieces. How indescribably inane!

    Rather than face issues of inadequacy in public hospitals, every group has been encouraged to fight for control of HOSPITALS THAT DON’T WORK! After all, it is well known that government officials do not use our hospitals around here – their families live abroad; their girlfriends and boyfriends shuttle in between. At government expense, all of them together use hospitals abroad that have been well funded, well equipped, well staffed with people who know their place in the system. Why, even when they want to die, they go to well-furnished hospitals in India or the West. Need I say more?

    So, why should they care what confusion may ensue in the nation’s hospitals? As it is now, I believe even Hospital Sanitation Engineers (Cleaners) can rise to take charge of the government hospitals. Now, our hospitals are still no more than consulting rooms, and the government hopes that doctors would call off their strike to rush to hospitals and treat the Ebola scare. It is even miffed that they have not! Pray, what protective equipment are doctors to use when they go back to these hospitals? What drugs are they to use? What insurance is there for them should they have incidental contacts with infectious diseases? And I am not talking about the emergency insurance offered by Lagos state in the heat of the moment. And what would happen if some of the over twenty thousand doctors and other hospital workers were to take Ebola home? Now, that is what I call calamitous.

    Sadly, we the public (including government) cannot see the scarcity of personnel or resources in our hospitals. All we can see is that doctors’ strikes have been too frequent. True, but I think it may be because we have failed to appreciate the dynamics of those call-outs: the reasons for their existence in the first place, the background, the processes, the personae, etc. No, it appears all we want to do is possibly teach those doctors who are not politicians a lesson. A story is told of how, a long time ago, a member of the public who was waiting to see a doctor during a lean period in the hospital, rejoiced when he heard that the government had dismissed all the doctors on strike.

    No, I am not biased, just irritated that we are not ordering our priorities right. Every sector is important in a serious economy, but in a growing one like ours, the most important ones demand that we put our money where our mouths are: education, health, industry, and the police system to keep us all in line. Sadly, the government appears to be allowing corruption to toy with them all. This is why we consider that the country is in serious trouble.

    I consider that the move to terminate the appointments of over sixteen thousand doctors at once in a country as seriously in trouble as this does not speak well of our politicians. If we think it is wrong for the doctors to refuse to resume work and help with the Ebola virus, the government’s action is a more massively wrong stroke. It is nothing but a giant wielding a big stick to fight an ant. If the government is not beating itself up for not acting on time on the Ebola virus, why is it now cudgeling doctors for asking for the right thing?

  • All these Ebola Virus ‘remedies’ are making me dizzy

    Now, who watches the tertiary contacts that the secondary contacts come in contact with: families, friends, neighbours, fellow travelers and commuters, etc.?

    I believe by now that we have nearly exhausted all the names we want to call Patrick Sawyer, the unconscionable individual who struggled against many odds to ensure that he accomplished his life’s mission: introduce the Ebola virus into Nigeria. By the accounts, Patrick Sawyer’s sister had just died of the disease; he himself had succumbed to it; was already in quarantine for it; was advised against travelling out of the country; collapsed at his home airport from the ravages of the disease; yet, still insisted on flying to Nigeria with the disease. He came with such urgency you would think he had been paid to come and universalise the problem. Now, we have Ebola in the country.

    How we got into this sorry pass though cannot be totally blamed on that guy. True, he should have known better, but then we should have known even better than him. Come on now, we own the country; so we should have looked after it better. However, what with our massive corruption (worst in the world), our laziness (renowned throughout the world), and our lackadaisical attitude to work (definitely the most horrendous throughout the world), we stood no chance. Why, when you put the three departments together, we put even the badger that hibernates for half a year to shame.

    First, we hear for weeks that the entire west coast, with us sitting pert and pretty in the middle of it, is bursting at the seams with Ebola Virus and what do we do? We nap. We do not put all hospitals in the country on alert. We do not begin immediately to suspect that the thing might stray in our direction. We do not even cursorily look in our cupboards of drugs to make sure that we do not get caught out in the middle of the night. Criminal, I tell you. Now, its midnight in this huge country of over a hundred million people, and we have been caught snoring.

    Worse, we do not even man our airports well. Consider this. If Mr. Sawyer had persisted in coming into Nigeria, should he not have been stopped by the airport authorities in Liberia? A sick man ought not to leave his country, whether or not anyone knew what was wrong with him, without adequate medical cover and known details. But theirs is not the greater sin. The greater sin belongs to the Nigerian airport authorities who saw a desperately sick man and did not detain him right there even if ostensibly for medical attention. At a time, so the story goes, he was throwing up and even had to lie flat on the floor. I ask you, I ask you, should that not have told our personnel manning the entry points at the airport something and made them deny him entry?!!! Many Nigerians have been denied entry into other countries for much, much less than falling ill with an undisclosed ailment. I understand that just for having facial marks, a Nigerian had to sit for quite a while at an airport somewhere in the world until he could sufficiently explain he was not carrying a virus from a ‘fight’ with a tiger. Come on people, for how long will this country continue to look after us while we fail to do our jobs of looking after it by being responsible at our desks and for our desks? I tell you that the day is coming in this country when even the tardiest receptionist will have to explain why she stole two seconds to renew her lipstick. I certainly look forward to it.

    Now, look at our borders. Unmanned, that is the word. I understand that one state alone has more than sixty-eight legal entry and exit points towards the west coast, and all of them unmanned. Someone says there are thousands more that are illegally used. To that I say, hurray! In short, there are as many entries to the west coast as the feet can tread. Super! Yet, we have the resources and manpower to close them all up but then, there’s no political will. Where the political will exists, I am told, the Nigerian cunning, which makes us all subvert and pervert every universal good law and goodwill, comes in to play. In short, Nigerians will always find new ways of thwarting the law. Yep, but that is because her leaders do not like to live by example. Correction: the people are only following the leaders’ examples of lawlessness, law-breaking, bunkering, smuggling, piracy, open sea theft, open land theft, just name it.

    Truth is, I believe if Mr. Sawyer did not bring Ebola to Nigeria, sooner or later one or more of our itinerant traders who trek across the borders would certainly have. One, there is no one to stop them; two, there is no one to stop them; three, … So, between our airport laxities and our porous borders, we certainly have always been sitting ducks. Sadly, that is not all.

    Then there is the little matter of our national reactions when thunder strikes like this. Now, to what shall we liken it? It is more like someone who has been given shock treatment, you know, the kind they give to people who cannot remember what they had for dinner the day before. Anyway, before the outbreak, we could not get the health minister to say a wise word on the doctors’ strike, but since the outbreak, we have not been able to get him to keep quiet on Ebola. Every day, there he is in Abuja, giving us the update on the outbreak as relayed to him from Lagos, even if the news is usually sent over our heads to get to him. Comical, no?!

    Naturally, the situation has given rise to rumours and counter rumours on what to do in the event of one contracting it. First, we are told not to worry, should you by any quirky chance or fate contract Ebola Virus, just head straight for the nearest batch of what we know around here as bitter kola and begin to chew and chew and chew until you are told to stop, presumably by the person who started the rumour in the first place. Well, when I heard it, I thought, if it was so simple to cure, why was the west deceiving us and telling us that the thing had no cure yet? Why could they not simply contract it out to me to supply airplanes full of the stuff from my father’s farm free of charge?

    Next, I heard that text messages were being sent around asking people to take their baths in salt water, and even drink some of the water. Ha, I gaped!!! Do they want to kill people? That situation would be like one with a real dilemma: between the devil and the deep, blue sea. In that situation, it would be better to stay with the devil you know. I tell you, the sea can be mighty dangerous; salt water marshes are even more so. Actually, I thought, that rumour must have originated from the guy who probably paid the Sawyer guy to make sure that by all means, he touched Nigeria after contracting the disease.

    In our usual way of not being able to account for everybody in any given situation, many of those who came in contact with Mr. Sawyer, those called secondary contacts, are said to be ‘under observation’. Now, who watches the tertiary contacts that the secondary contacts come in contact with: families, friends, neighbours, fellow travelers and commuters, etc.? Then who watches the contacts that these ones will now come in contact with? Now, you get my worry. This country should act more proactively. It owes the people that.

  • Between the President’s Superman cape and Sherlock Holmes’ hat…

    While Mr. President was undecided on whether or not to don that cape, another enemy has gone and camped round about his territory, and that is the dreaded Ebola virus

    Honestly, a man should not have too many enemies. The tendency is that he would either have to spread his resources thin to cover his exposed flanks or he would overreact in fear by lashing out recklessly. Believe me, I know about reckless. I see it every day on the road when I see a young ‘un behind the wheel. They are the ones whose speedometers never read ‘I just want to get home to my family’ speeds. For your reckless youth, however, the meter is constantly reading between ‘It is great to be young, stupid and mad!!! and ‘Hell, hell, heeeeell, here I come!!! When you see such people along your route, you just better pull by and let them get on. It is best not to go down with them.

    Reckless, however, is another name for this country right now. I know this point has been flogged again and again by so many writers but it obviously cannot be overstressed. What we have coming from the north is nothing short of recklessness meeting recklessness. Successive government officers have tended over the decades to focus more ardently on the things most beneficial to them such as how much they can stash away from funds meant to ensure that people do not become excluded through excessive poverty or political marginalisation. The result is what we have all been witnessing in the form of the reckless killing and bombing of fellow citizens by boko haram terrorists, and the destruction of future generations of human resources. Unfortunately, the target group of this anger has been fellow innocent people who are victims of the same poverty and exclusion, and are possible future human work forces. Vicious circle, I’ll say, from which relief seemed a mirage until the president gleefully announced during the week that he would lead the country to win that war.

    Now, don’t ask me how the president intends to lead the country ‘cause I honestly don’t know. I say, suppose he dons a military uniform, untrained and peace-loving as he is? Would he hold the bayonet and grenade? Suppose he dons a mufti and goes in as just another undercover agent, gathering information about the lay of the land, the enemy’s armoury, army number, etc.? Suppose, eh, just suppose he dons Superman’s cape and literally flies in and routs the enemy before you can say boko haram? Now, that would be a story worth telling my grandchildren.

    Honestly, as I read that piece of news about the president’s declaration, I immediately felt pride swelling in my heart. Luckily, I was able to quell the tide of swelling before it got to dangerous proportions. I felt that the president was telling the country for the first time that, hey, you people, you do have a president you know, and look, it’s me! Then I thought, just as I’m sure he also thought, what the heck had he been doing all this while? Why wait for thousands of people to lose their lives before making that kind of heartening pronouncement? Why wait till nearly all was lost through bombings, shootings, sackings of villages before donning this Superman’s cape? The president needs to explain that first.

    I’m sure, dear reader, you would want to say let him even win the battle first and leave explanations till later. The trouble is that, you know, there are some among us who like to ask intelligent questions in the heat of the moment. Once, a grandmother had told her grandchild that whenever she was afraid, a good song would drive the fear away. Imagine the consternation of the grandmother when the child wanted to sing in the middle of an attack on the house by armed robbers!

    Well, while Mr. President was undecided on whether or not to don that cape, another enemy has gone and camped round about his territory, and that is the dreaded Ebola virus. This enemy, we understand, takes no prisoners and leaves no quarters. It is so dreaded every country in the world wants to lock their doors against it. It is therefore understandable that everyone in the country is literally up in arms against it.

    First, everyone seems to have agreed that venison, which has been appropriated as ‘the Nigerian delicacy’ and renamed ‘bush-meat’, is no longer as innocent as it looks. It is now a suspect in the efforts to track down the killer disease. Imagine that: some people are going to starve. Beer is no longer going to flow down the red lane as effortlessly as it used to do when accompanied by dried game. Now, beer has to travel down all by its lonesome self. Not funny.

    There are more suspects. There is the handshake, the universal signal of brotherhood and friendship. We understand that the virus can be transmitted via handshakes. To give someone a handshake is now indeed an enemy action as it is a clear sign of a desire to spread the virus to one’s enemy. Henceforth, at least until further notice, it has been advised that handshakes be forbidden to forestall unintentional adoption of the virus from a host. Now, everyone has to go around greeting with the teeth literally gritted while shaking hands mentally, and everyone literally has to keep his/her hands by his side. A no-handshake policy, indeed, is going to make the world a harder place to live in; as if things were not bad enough.

    Worse, people are now even scared to visit their sick friends and relatives, and I think that is the unkindest cut of all. Just try and think what that is going to do to families. Wives will no longer trust their husbands’ fevers; husbands will not trust their wives’ fevers. For one thing, where did she or he get it from and why should they have to maybe die for the carelessness of the other? That is when we realize the truth: no one wants to die. Then the questions begin: if you were not prepared to die with me, says the offended one, why swear ‘for better, for worse? Then another truth dawns: all that proclamation was just part of the rhetoric of marriage – to persuade.

    Worse, sick relatives are going to take endless umbrages for other relatives who fail to visit them on their beds of languishing. The culmination of it all is that everyone is going to go around suspecting each other’s sickness now. We can however take courage in the fact that there are other ways we can still rely on each other. There is the… and then the… Oh you! I bet you were already imagining something unsavory when all I am talking about is the phone. Yes, the phone will now become the all-important focus for family gatherings.

    This is why I started this essay by saying that a man should not have too many enemies to fight. The president has his own personal battles which no one can help him with, what with 2015 and all. However, there is no doubt that he needs to don more than one uniform to fight ours. Just as soon as he is through leading the country against the terror war in Superman’s cape, he needs to put on his Sherlock Holmes coat, hat and smoking pipe and track down this dreaded disease.

  • In this place full of all known oddities, life is brutish and short

    The question still remains why? Will somebody please tell us why these things are happening?

    These terrestrial plains are full of oddities enough. Take the countries of the world. Don’t we have countries so rich and contented they are even planning right now to create cities on extraterrestrial plains where some of their citizens may retire to periodically when their souls feel like taking a break? On the other hand, don’t we have countries so poor it is all they can do to even keep their governments running and their citizens fed on one square meal a day? Then, don’t we have countries so advanced in scientific discoveries they have practically invented everything including machines that work, think, eat, fight, and breathe for humans? In such societies, machines keep the roads orderly, maintain the transport, water, electricity, and all other systems, and generally keep a tab on public utilities. But then, we also have countries that are so steeped in ignorance and superstition that they still make human sacrifices. Just one more comparison before we leave this paragraph. Don’t we have countries so developed they know and protect every member of the society irrespective of race, party, colour or creed? And then don’t we have other countries so undeveloped they are practically at the point of asking you if you are of a certain religion or creed before selling you a box of matches? Well, don’t we?

    Now, let’s come to the oddities in our own Nigeria. One of the great oddities, among many others, that I am never tired of pointing out in Nigeria, is the religious hypocrisy that is so endemic and pandemic to us. All religions in Nigeria appear to recognize the cardinal rule that loving God and loving one’s neighbour summarise God’s laws, making them the two rules that matter most. Yet, here, in this land, we have enough religious oddities. One, we have our religious zealots who hold such noisy night vigils all night long, with drums and other music apparatuses blaring so much noises out of loud speakers placed outside the worship place so that the neighbours cannot sleep. The only thing those ones can do is mutter imprecations against all men of God into their pillows all night. Two, we have other religious zealots who blare their early morning call to prayers right into the ear drums of neighbours accompanied by loud music and sermons, depending on their pick. They never mind such little things as neighbours who may be sick and need some quiet, have been on night duty and need morning sleep, have babies that have been up all night, or have gone partying and have come home to sleep. Yep, we are all entitled to our oddities, but the point is that our religions are so busy loving we their neighbours that they keep us awake all night, muttering imprecations into our pillows.

    One oddity that is still difficult to understand though is the predilection for settling scores with bombs, particularly in the north. It is no longer any news that over this last week, bombs went off in Kaduna in such mad successions that had all our collective vertebrae baffled and reeling around in intemperate shock. No one is sure of the death toll but figures are said to be around a hundred, give or take. Naturally, as with all such bombings, the victims are all innocent of all the grievances that prompted and motivated such a grandiose and disproportionate destruction.

    What I find incomprehensible though is that when these bombings occur, everyone is shocked and we all scamper around trying to find reasons or some kind of solace in conjectures. Then, the country moves on, with nothing coming out of police investigations. Granted, there are those among us so intelligent that they can read the political terrain and tell what it all means despite what we see, or even foretell what may come next. There are however many like me who are of a more simple turn of mind who like to be told first the kind of leaves at the bottom of the tea cup before being given the interpretation of those leaves and why they are at the bottom of my teacup in the first place and not someone else’s. No one, so far, has been able to explain to us why we are daily losing hundreds of citizens to bombs indiscriminately discarded by aggrieved individuals. It is an egregious violation of our intelligence indeed that we are being slaughtered for a reason we don’t know. So, the question still remains why? Will somebody please tell us why these things are happening?

    Perhaps, I tell myself, some people are so angry with the government that they have resorted to bombing the government’s citizens, you know, as they do in football. If you cannot get the team, get the players by breaking their legs or something. Truth is, I don’t know any Nigerian now who is not angry with this government, but if we all went around bombing each other, where would we all be? The government is not paying me enough, gboam! The government is not giving enough electricity to the people, gboam! The government is not pumping water into my house, gboam! Now tell me, just how many gboams do you think we will need to make it hear us? One good example, just look at the way the government is handling the crisis in the health sector. I tell you, it deserves many gboams for that. Rather than tell people the truth and let everyone go home and build the country by doing the work they are paid for, the government decided to create a crisis for political reasons where none need have existed. Now, there is a crisis, and there is an impasse and everyone is watching how it will get itself out of that unsavory jam.

    Perhaps again, I tell myself, these bombers are truly being used and sponsored by faceless politicians to make faceless political points that have not been clearly enunciated. If that is so, all I can say is shame, thrice shame on them for using defenseless and innocent citizens to make such useless points! One, I assume these politicians are men; two, I assume they are old enough to fight their own fights. So, I believe it is not only cowardly, it is unmanly of them to fight through boys hardly out of their nappies to be able to fully appreciate the values of left and right thinking, and worse to use innocent people as fodders in their cannons. It is just so cowardly. Cowards!!!

    In all of this, we are all losing. Just imagine the sheer number of those who have been sent to the beyond since this crisis began, and multiply by three to include those who have been rendered economically incapable, then imagine the vast area of land that can no longer be farmed because of this problem, then imagine those who have become refugees outside their homes on this account, then you begin to appreciate the problem a bit. Right now, the loss in economic terms is huge. Yet, it does not include the great depletion of future human resources this problem is occasioning. We cannot now begin to calculate the incalculable harm this thing is doing to our future. When the time comes, let us pray that we do not pack our hands on top of our heads.

    Let the sponsors and users of this group of arsonists and bombers be made known so that we can dismember them, verbally. It is important that they should come out of hiding and face the nation to tell us why so many people’s lives have been made brutish and short through being killed, maimed, displaced, or psychologically tormented. As fellow Nigerians, we deserve an answer.

  • This peace that passes all understanding is truly baffling

    Don’t get me wrong; we are not expecting them to give us fiction for facts. We just need them to share our turmoil, that’s all

    When all about you are losing their heads, so goes an adage, it is time to pick up your feet and run, particularly when you know and understand the cause of the general insanity. However, when you are the only one losing your head while all others around you are calm, it is time to quietly surrender your arm for that dreaded sodium pentothal injection. That injection is not called the truth serum for nothing. In no time, it will have you screaming ‘I’ll talk, I’ll tell you everything’ as you begin to spew out the facts and fiction you have no idea reside in your brain like hidden germs. After that stormy outpouring comes the peace, the calm that sometimes ascends from the eye of the storm, so to say.

    Peace is supposed to mean tranquility, the absence of war, or a calm that signals an absence of violence or disorder. Peace is therefore not expected to spell trouble. However, there can be a peace that is disturbing and troubling when the expected relief does not arise from anywhere near sight of the peace. For instance, around our authorities here, there is a peace that passes all understanding because it is rather baffling.

    When one considers the behavioral pattern of the federal government and the Nigerian Army over what has come to be known as the ‘Abduction of the Chibok Girls’, one cannot help but be seriously baffled. When the story broke, I honestly saw a Nigerian populace gripped by a serious panic since that kind of brazen abduction had not occurred before in the country. No one could imagine anybody in his right senses, trucking up and carting away over two hundred girls in such a bold manner. It resembles too closely the manner in which cattle are rustled. Silently, like lambs, they go to the shearer; except that these are human beings. This is why this peace that has settled on us like a fog is so troubling.

    Normally, everyone has come to agree that this is a country where anything can happen and there would be no shocking tremors. This is a country where a presidential candidate has died in custody, a sitting president has died mysteriously, a sitting Attorney-general has ostensibly been murdered (wonders of wonders, and the nation never been told whodunit!). It is also a nation where the uncle of a sitting president has been kidnapped; the mother of a most powerful minister has also been kidnapped… Need I go on? So, yes, shock waves the sizes of tremors have been passed through our individual and collective bodies in this country in the process of making us talk. But, as they say in the movies, those events did not break us, until the Chibok girls came along.

    Something about those little mites got everyone’s attention. I think it began with their innocence. There is one truism they say about war: it is often the innocent who get caught and cut up in it. I think the innocence of the girls pulled at everyone’s heartstrings and played on them the tunes of love like no other victim has so far. Nearly everyone went up in flappers over their abduction when it happened; everyone, that is, except the federal government. Playing it cool, the government made it known it did not believe the girls were even missing in the first place until more hullabaloos were raised. Since then, the government has refused to let itself be hassled into rescuing the girls. No one understands why, but ours to ask the reason why.

    Even though there have been offers from various foreign bodies to intervene and come to the rescue, so to say, nothing has happened. All we see is a federal government neither flapping its wings in anxiety nor biting its nails in agitation. It is not even ruffled. With this government, everything’s cool even if its over two hundred innocent girls are imprisoned in terrorist camps. It’s wonderful. Something must be responsible for this peace, and I know it’s not Jesus Christ.

    Let’s take a few guesses. First, it is possible that the government really knows something that we don’t, such as whether or not those girls are really missing. It is just too much that the entire nation, nay world, has been up in indignation over this affair except our own government. Many people have indicated their disappointment, anger, annoyance or even irritation with the government’s response or lack of it over this matter, but not me. Me, I am just baffled by this peace; it is indeed a peace that I cannot understand. Here we are, all losing our heads, and the government is keeping its own; it is not picking up its feet and running. Something is not clear.

    I am also baffled by the military response, or lack of it. I have mentioned here before that I believed that the Nigerian Army was among the world’s best armies. I still believe it. However, it has not been up to the bar on this matter either. First, everyone expected the army to have immediately gone on the trails of the terrorists before they went cold. We are talking about over two hundred girls o! Not only did it not do that, it seemed to have waited for the terrorists to be long gone before appearing to swing into action. Wonderful, but it gets worse.

    Much later, after the hues and cries from all corners of the world, the army finally admits to knowing where the terrorists were and where they had kept the girls but would not go after them then for one reason or the other. It still has not gone after them. Now, I do not understand that kind of statement or what the army wants this country to believe. I cannot even begin to decipher it because it is full of pragmatic innuendos. For one thing, does it mean that the country can still be protected against external aggression even if the internal one has us scratching our heads? I’m only asking. Indeed, I believe only one person understands that equivocation – and that is the owner of the utterance. For that statement, the entire country has been losing its collective head, and the army is calm. I guess ours is not to reason why after all.

    Clearly, there are many things we are failing to understand about the government, the army and the Chibok girls. Unfortunately, we seem to have a governance style that does not explain things to the people unless it wants to engage them in fisticuffs over a real or imagined slight. The country therefore frequently finds itself resorting to rumours, and boy, are those things flying around or what?! But this is not the place to repeat them.

    All we are saying here is that there is so much turmoil in the land over the girls’ abduction, and the authorities are too much at peace with themselves. Don’t get me wrong; we are not expecting them to give us fiction for facts. We just need them to share our turmoil, that’s all. Let us end this peace that passes all understanding, bring in some credible action.

  • What is the good in building up a population if you can’t use it to build the nation?

    Let us make Nigeria’s population count

    You know, when one ponders the matter, it becomes obvious that the reason we have not quite understood the point in this country is that we have all been talking at cross-purposes. You know what that is, don’t you? It is when two people have their wires crossed in their subject matters, sometimes deliberately, sometimes by a quirky calculation of pure chance. For instance, take the classical case of when a man wants to take a second wife. He begins by noting how hard it is for his wife to cope with the house-work and all, and even suggests getting someone to help her. Naturally, the wife eagerly throws herself into the conversation, nodding her agreement while believing the husband to be talking about the same kind of helper she is thinking of. Can a conversation be more crossed and entangled than when realization dawns? I always love the point when reality dawns and the fireworks begin to fly.

    In Nigeria, national discourse is often so entangled you can’t make out what anybody is saying. For instance, I read the other day that some assembly members, senators, and state governors somewhere in this vast expanse of a country had got their brains jammed and decided to fix a retirement sum for themselves that runs into a hundred million Naira. It is enough to make anyone who is not a governor go jump in the lake and drown. Now, that is coming right after the furore generated by the unfair heftiness of these people’s allowances and emoluments; unfair to the rest of us of course, not to them. Naturally, many of us are so enraged we want to puncture their swelled cheeks with our nails in the hope of reducing them. Sadly, some others don’t see things this right way. You can easily spot them: they have eyes behind their backs. They are wondering what the hullabaloo is all about, because they think that their excellences are not only deserving of the hundred million retirement sums, they wonder why we can’t spare more. Never mind that there are many Nigerians across the states who cannot feed well in any given day.

    So many promising national discourses have nosedived into the ground and have not yielded any fruit because of these crossed wires. For instance, some among us insist on defending what cannot possibly be of any good for the health of the nation. How can one defend someone charged with helping himself to billions of Naira using any argument on earth and in heaven? Yet, many of them regularly manage to be freed by the law courts and the people’s court, particularly when the people share the same ethnic background. The other day, I heard someone say that a bank chief accused of pocketing tens of billions of his bank’s money was only a victim of someone in the apex bank; in actual fact, he was innocent. I said, WOW! Now, I have heard everything. Next, they will tell us that the certain someone accused of pocketing funds from a pensions fund was actually the target of a functionary’s anger. What now, are we living in tents across the land where everyone runs to when they are accused of indecent behaviour?

    The thing about discourses is that they have ways of bringing out the best or worst or the dregs in the innermost recesses of our brains. The pity is that we all appear to be clothed in human skin, yet we are hosting so many incapacitating germs in our brains. This proves, according to a fable, what one animal said to another: there are many walking on two legs who should be using four. Many among us, dear reader, are really animals in animal skin, and many more are in human skin. When you consider that the world just celebrated the world population day, you want to pause a bit and reflect on these two important questions: what really makes up the Nigerian population; and what is the good in building up a population if you can’t use it to build the nation?

    Honestly, I cannot begin to think of telling you the answer to the first question, lest I be hanged in effigy by many a reader. The unfortunate thing is that nearly all, if not all of us, have brought some degree of impropriety into the sanctity of Nigeria’s population. We all really deserve to hang our heads downwards like brooding chickens, pluck at our chests like penitents and intone after me: we are sinners and are very proud of it. We are not worthy to be counted as members of the population of this country. If you think you are not affected just because you have never ‘swallowed’ millions or billions, raise your hand and I’ll show you an untruth-sayer. Please note, I have not called you a liar, just an untruth-sayer. Have you or have you never stopped in the middle of the road to greet your friend while traffic built up behind you? Well, have you not? Can you say, in any given day, that you do not regularly break any traffic, building, contracting, policing, soldering, doctoring, nursing, teaching, civil-servicing, studenting, or anything-you-do rule? Well, can you? And the most important question of all, can you say that you regularly or even averagely work for the pay you get?

    Nigeria has a population of people dwelling within her walls and occupying her space. Sadly, though, she has no builders, only sackers of treasuries, spoilers of lands and plunders of the nation. Everyone is so busy trying to get his/her itching hand on the ‘national cake’ it’s a wonder that there is still any left. Nigeria’s population right now is engrossed in ravaging the land like locusts, taking, taking, taking and giving little or nothing back. For them, there’s no such thing as ‘ask not what your country can do for you …’ and all that. For this population, it is what we can get from the country that counts. Yet normally, when a country has a population such as Nigeria’s, it is supposed to constitute a formidable workforce that should make and keep the machinery of state at world-top level. Perhaps, the future we saw yesterday will return tomorrow.

    However, here we are today, the about one hundred and sixty million of us, a population bred as a nation that cannot even keep its own laws. How then can we build a nation? Oh yes, failure to keep the law is failure to build the nation. Someone once said she was afraid to train her child to be obedient, law abiding, humble and all that because she was certain that many parents are allowing their children to grow up as wild, lawless beings. This would then mean that her children would be greatly disadvantaged. For answer, I did not answer.

    I guess World Population Day is the day we are supposed to gather round a table as a nation and talk about how to control it downwards or upwards, considering that the food resources are at the moment not at par with the users. So, we are supposed to discuss how best to match population with resources for the maximum development potential of every individual. However, I chose the road not normally trodden today for a good reason: that many of us do not sufficiently appreciate the connection between respecting the country and gaining access to the just and equitable utilisation of her resources. It is this connection which prevents humanity from being a useless population to a useful one. For what indeed, does it profit a country to gain so much population figures and lose its very essence? Let us make Nigeria’s population count in a way that matters. No pun intended.

  • Is the confab really serious about recommending 18 more states for Nigeria?

    Running a state is obviously a very costly business, and it does not include the expenses of caring for the people

    Seriously? Honestly? When I read the report that the confab members planned to include the request that Nigeria create more states, I nearly flipped. I shook my head and immediately thought, surely, either that there are still people here who do not understand the problem, who do not get it, or I am living in Mars. Oh yes, there are people who normally do not get it and they are called, wait for it, the government. Today though, I prefer the other option: that I am living in Mars, because then, I can pretend others who do not get it do not exist. Let’s see now how best I can give the confab members my own opinion on the issue in a way that will not jolt them too much or give them the impression that I am not altogether with them or give them the impression I do not like them or the job they are doing. Now, how can I do that? NO, NO, NO; no more states. Haba!

    Now, how can we explain this problem to them? Let us begin with the most basic implication of this calamitous and precipitous move. It will unbalance my psyche. I will not be able to wrap the fact around my tiny brain that there will now be, what, fifty-five states in Nigeria, what with Abuja being treated as a state with its own government. Listen, things are delicate enough around here as it is without anyone adding to the confusion. That’s it: more states = more confusion. You don’t know what I mean? Let’s see now.

    To begin with, having more states means having more governors. Right now, in this present dispensation, Nigeria has had to cope with governors who went on sick leave lasting more than eight months at a stretch, some lasting for more than one year so far and still counting; governors buying and flying jets from public coffers; governors wrangling over who presides over the affairs of other governors while not having completed their original purposes as governors; governors in perpetual tussles with their godfathers; and governors generally doing all kinds of things but governing. Do we want more of that? Do we really? Wait now, there is more.

    Having more states will definitely mean having more jets in the Nigerian airspace, and that will equally definitely make it more unsafe. Right now, there is an epidemic of the penchant for purchasing jets by public office holders. I tell you, it’s a biting bug, and it’s biting harder each day. So far, no one has told us that five out of six of the more than thirty-something jets currently in Nigeria were NOT purchased with public funds. No one. It is such a strange co-incidence that a goodly number of them belong to public office holders whose ‘people’ are still living in worse than abject poverty because funds meant for their relief are being spent purchasing … jets. Worse, the airspace in Nigeria cannot quite accommodate these excellencies who sometimes wonder why they should not fly their own jets, like cars, as proof that they really own them, like cars. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe there is a governor who is still writhing because he wondered similarly and… Someday, I believe we will hear his story.

    Anyway, we know that a governor must be accompanied by all the paraphernalia of office such as FLs, SAs, FSs, FDs, etc. Just hold on to your yams, all will be made clear. First of all, we do not want to be encumbered with more First Ladies whose credentials to the office do not go beyond the fact that they are consorts to the multiple mini emperors. Listen, many FLs are bad news. No, they have not done me any harm, but they have not done us any much good either. Have you noticed that each one sort of comes with a programme that consumes billions of state funds to execute and as soon as they and their principals are out of office, the programme sort of dies a natural death, along with our billions? I have noticed it and I tell you, it boggles the mind. There is something definitely fishy there that we must examine someday.

    More, we most definitely do not want more Special Advisers to the Governors appointed to comfort the said governor, who is often caught in the throes of so much work he needs loads of them, SAs that is, not more work. We have written on this topic before, so we do not want to repeat ourselves here but we must say this. We hear there is a state that has more than a hundred Special Advisers to the Governor… The less said on the topic the better. Anyway, we all know that these are political jobbers who prefer not to exert themselves too much in the boxing arena called the workspace plying their God-given talents and gifts for their daily meals. No sir; they prefer to answer their benefactors’ summons.

    Now, dear people, you most definitely do not want to add more to the number of first sons and first daughters we already have plaguing the country. Right now, we have chalked up such a huge number of them floating around everywhere in the world schooling, playing, laying and sniffing at the nation’s cost, it will make you wonder. You would not believe that those who are not abroad are here being contractors bidding for the same contracts issuing from daddy’s office as you and I. Guess who usually wins.

    So now, people, there are three ways we can approach this thing. I think we should cancel the idea of having eighteen more states altogether. From what I have regaled you with above, you can see that running a state is obviously a very costly business, and it does not include the expenses of caring for the people. If we were to add that, heaven knows what a state’s bill would look like. Worse, very few of these states are actually generating enough to take care of the bills of the governor’s penchants, his family’s and his SAs. Seriously, nearly all of them have been going cap in hand to Abuja every month to have tea. Well, they have to take something while waiting to be received by the AG. Now, the boisterous atmosphere in the waiting room of that gentleman’s office is leading some of us to suspect they are having a tea party in there when they go, err, cap-in-hand. Let’s go on.

    The second thing we can do is to ask state agitators to prove that the proposed states can cater for themselves. This means that the entire areas must prove that they have enough resources to take care of the apparatuses of the governorship office as stated above and still have plenty left over to distribute to, err, the people, especially during elections.

    The third option is to ask not for eighteen states but nineteen. That number will take care of all your own demands for new states, and also mine. Yes, my dear, I demand a state for myself. And why not? Frankly, if it is possible for me to live elsewhere in order to escape hearing about the grating, irrational deeds of mankind, white or black, I would gladly take the offer. Mars is a good option, but since there is no proof of life there yet, I am forced to settle for demanding a state of my own. Living on a state by myself, I will definitely be immune to demands from people that Nigeria be split into a hundred states. Surely, that time is coming too.

  • On another father’s day…

    Sadly, there are many fathers who are not on talking terms with their children, and vice versa. The rule is, if we cannot heal, we must not fracture

    Have you noticed that June is the month of confrontation? It is the time of the year when the heavens and the earth meet in one long conversation that ends in downpours the likes you haven’t seen since the year began. It is also the time in the year when the earth’s plants and the sky’s sun begin their hide and seek game to bring out varied colours of flower sprigs so bright and fair Othello’s Desdemona would be green with envy. Above all, it is the month fathers and children look at each other and confront some hard truths: why in the world do they resemble each other in every way particular, even to the repeating of the same damned mistakes of the fathers? Is it just a hormonal thing or is it psychological: that we are all compelled to repeat our parent’s mistakes? Or is it a matter of the family’s share of the grey matter gene not being efficient?

    Whatever it may be, it is important to note that the world is celebrating all fathers today. You know what they are, don’t you? They are those generally oak-like beings who hover around the house, growling their needs and displeasure (in one breath) at nearly every moment and are forever issuing commands. ‘You, get me my newspaper! You, get me my pen! You, come outside and get me a stone to hurl at that lizard! What do you mean you are inside and I’m outside? What has that got to do with anything?’ Naturally, with reasonable attitudes like that, you are not surprised that world wars are fought daily in many homes, and the United Nations can do nothing to help.

    Seriously, there are more fathers and children living in fractured relationships than you can imagine. Forget Freud and his psychoanalytic theory of Oedipus Complex or Rex that causes unnecessary and useless competitions; forget his student, Jung, and his even bigger theories about the inner workings of the (in)human mind. Fractured relationships are fractured relationships. Something causes them; it is certain that something can mend them. But what do these relationships fracture over?

    It is not certain but disagreements over what each takes to be the stuff of life helps. That is what makes one go, ‘YOU BETTER TALK TO YOUR SON; HE SAYS HE WANTS TO BE A WRITER WHEN HE CAN BE A LAWYER. WHAT DOES HE WANT TO LIVE ON, EH, WHAT? HE WANTS TO GO AND STARVE. OR DOES HE THINK I’M GOING TO SUPPORT HIM THROUGHOUT HIS LIFE? YOU BETTER TALK TO HIM!’ And the other goes, ‘Why can daddy not understand? Why is he behaving as if he was never a young man himself? Can’t he understand that I’ve got my life to live? It’s my life after all!’ With a stalemate like that, the mother can only do one thing: continue to swivel her head from one speaker to another. Hers is such a placid, peaceful life.

    Watching father-child interactions gives one a better understanding of the war of the worlds than any book or film can. It is a veritable collision of courses where everyone thinks he/she is just and the other a malevolent monster. What is a child but a being sent from the other world to come and plague you, said a father. And another asked his son: ‘And what do you want to be when you grow up?’ ‘A daddy, with a lot of luck’, replied the son, as he watched his father struggle to balance the family’s accounts.

    Then there can be failure to appreciate the stuff that each is made of. One can go, ‘Mummy, why is Daddy such a hard man? No matter what you ask him, the answer is always ‘NO’. ‘No’ to shoe allowance; ‘no’ to make-up allowance; ‘no’ to summer holidays abroad when all my friends are going. Why can’t he understand that our times are different from his?’ And the father goes, ‘You better talk to your daughter. In this house there is no room for any spoiled child. My parents did not spoil me; why should I spoil any yeye child?’

    That reminds me of a story I read in a magazine. The son of the house had asked to borrow the car for the weekend. The father had agreed on the condition that the son would first mow the lawn. He agreed and the contract was signed, verbally. When the father returned from his own weekend trip, the son complained that he could not find the car key. ‘Funny,’ said the father, ‘I tied it to the handle of the lawn mower myself before going away.’

    Of course, disagreements over properties are normal, everyday occurrences. Once Junior learns to drive, the question of who really owns the car becomes mute. Nobody asks it; only the father grumbles about accruing mileage, increasing fuel costs, and having to pay for the pleasure rides of sons who should be studying or working. ‘After all,’ father concludes his tirade, ‘at his age, I already owned a car. He just better not think that he is going to own this house’. Now, that is war.

    I believe I have told this story before but I will tell it again for the sake of those reading this column for the first time while the old hands can enjoy it again and also because I enjoy repeating jokes. Once, a father and son were quarrelling, and at a heated point of the exchange, the father peremptorily asked the son to leave his house. The son replied that he was going nowhere because he was in his father’s house. His father could go and look for his own father’s house if he wished and stay there.

    I’m not quite sure but I seem to think that report cards may also have something to do with it. That’s another ‘at your age…’ syndrome that can cause fractures. You know how fathers are forever going on and on about how they always came first in their classes in their primary school days? Well, one such bragging was brought to an end recently when some children discovered their father’s primary school report card in some very old box that appeared never to have been opened. In black and white, the report showed daddy coming second from the rear. When the children confronted their father with the evidence, he summarily sent them out of the house. The silly things, he grumbled; let them not go and read their books instead of going around searching old boxes!

    Anyway, an analyst has suggested that men who always claim to have come first in their primary school days actually believe the lie they tell themselves. By the way, there are many self-deluding fathers who believe many other things: that their children are as well behaved outside the house as they are within it; that everyone lies against their children out of envy; that their children fail because teachers hate them, not that they are lazy… Well, time to wake up.

    On this column last year, we greeted the fathers and prayed that they would help their family members reach their best. This year, we are praying that fathers, as well as, if not better than mothers, can be fracture healers in their families. Fractures can heal with a great deal of patient and loving handling; and so will fractured relationships. Sadly, there are many fathers who are not on talking terms with their children. The rule is, if we cannot heal, we must not fracture.

    Secondly, this column prays fathers to be encouragers of their broods for a healthy family relationship. The health of the Nigerian family is in the hands of both mothers and fathers; neither is indispensable.

  • Now we know where all the children have gone

    Children should please be allowed to be children: learning about life through school and play, play and school, in those orders

    Giving on this planet does not come cheap. One, you have to pay for the food you consume, and two, you have to justify the space you take. Now, you can imagine that that will be a problem for some of us large ones. Generally, though, labour is the accepted means of obtaining getting payment. However, it is well agreed that the age of labour onset varies from how deviant to how devious a society is.

    You know the deviant society, don’t you? It is that society that resists the natural instinct of kleptomania, sociopathy and psychopathy. In short, it helps its citizens. Likewise, you can recognize the devious society. That’s the one that knows and willingly yields to the natural instinct of kleptomania, sociopathy and psychopathy. However, its citizens are not helped; so they are mostly sociopaths and psychopaths. We are going to talk about the latter, an example of which is Nigeria.

    Coming hard on the heels of the World Children’s day anniversary is yet another set aside for marking child labour day in order to, well, draw attention to the right of the child not to be forced to work. It is most worrisome indeed, when children are put to work that is more serious than eating, playing and schooling. You have no idea how hard it is to cope with learning to add two and two for a child of three or four or whenever it is they are supposed to learn to add two drops of water to another two drops and make … em… four. One child was so proud of his six out of six score in arithmetic one day that he came home practically gloating and jumping around. After everyone in the house had admired it, he himself settled down to admire it some more, running his fingers over the page and telling everyone who cared to listen how he worked so hard, thought so hard, and wracked his brain so hard to get the answers and no one can guess just how hard he worked on it. After all the gloating, he eventually went to sleep, exhausted.

    Oh, I’m sure you would say someone should have put the proud blighter to work. I have nothing against putting children to some kind of work if it keeps them engaged and prevents them from scampering forever in between people’s toes. The question is what kind of work?

     Over the centuries, history has regaled us with accounts of how children as young as seven have been put to labours as intense as sweeping soot-filled chimneys, shining shoes in thin clothes and thinner shoes in all kinds of weather or employed… for robbing people. Around here, the labours vary, but no less intense. Well, there is hawking, there is houseboying or housegirling, there’s early marriage lopping, shop-keeping, etc. Thing is, as the ads go, no age is too small for these jobs, as long as the child is weaned.

    It was in the course of doing some research around this topic that I came across a piece flying around the internet purportedly written by Prof. Wole Soyinka. The piece gave details about the various ages in which many of the first/second generations of Nigeria’s leaders assumed national responsibilities. For example, so goes the piece, people like Okotie-Eboh, Enahoro, Nzeogwu, Mohammed, Danjuma, Babangida, Abacha, Buhari, etc., were all in their twenties, while people like Awolowo, Akintola, Ahmadu bello, Balewa, etc., were in their thirties when they assumed national offices. The piece now went on to ask why today’s youths in those age brackets have not assumed such responsibilities as leading their country and generally doing better than they presently are doing. I have a few things to say about that.

    Actually, when I saw the list, I heaved a sigh of relief. I felt like the man who went to the doctor to complain about an ailment, only for the doctor to examine him and look perplexed, before asking, ‘Have you had this problem before?’ ‘Yes’, said the patient, writhing in pain. ‘Well’, said the doctor, ‘you’ve got it again.’ A disease that has no name has no cure, like Nigeria’s. To my great relief, though, we have found a name for what is wrong with Nigeria: it is called Youthocracy – being thrust into the hands of irreverent youths.

    Just look at the age ranges again, and you will see the origin of Nigeria’s problems. True, there have been many countries whose leaders have been about as young as these. There was Napoleon Bonaparte; there was Alexander the Great; etc. Those two were clearly under thirty when they went conquering the known world. However, such leaders had been thoroughly grilled in the philosophy and wisdom of the ages. For instance, Alexander had so much philosophy poured into him by Aristotle that he was practically pouring the stuff out through his ears. Not so our own young ‘uns. Obviously, they had need of more maturity and more aging to be able to carry the responsibility they thrust on themselves, mainly through coup d’etats..

    Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that Nigeria is exactly what it is today because these early leaders were not much out of their diapers before they were thrust forward. They thus had not outgrown the passions of youth such as ill-temper, greed, intemperance, exuberance, etc., that normally blocks one’s vision and prevents clear-sightedness. They were not old enough to even have visions In short, in such untrained, dead-from-the-neck-up youthful hands, Nigeria was doomed from the beginning and practically dead on arrival. The only thing those ones learnt how to do was satiate their lustful appetites.

    And have you noticed that that same group has been recycling itself in leadership since that time? Seriously, talk of presidency list, the same group; talk of ministerial list, the same group; talk of senatorial list, the same group; and house of reps list, the same group! HABA! NA DEM ALONE WAKA COME NIGERIA?! The worst part is that they have no idea of nation building. Honestly speaking, I hold them responsible for Nigeria’s woes – they did not lay any solid foundation for social engineering, and the woes of the youths today – they have stood solidly in front of everybody. They are like the proverbial tortoise – they can’t move, and they won’t let anyone else through.

    Now, what were we talking about before we veered off? Oh yes, clearly, there’s a lot to be said against child labour. All you need to do is look at the Nigerian situation. Seriously, though, employing children may be a cheap means of solving problems, but the long-run costs are huge. Besides, it’s actually taking undue advantage of the wee toddlers. Parents solve their economic problems by engaging children to hawk and the day’s earning becomes food for the family. I told you once of a family of able-bodied fellows which comes every evening to the soliciting point of a mentally disabled young beggar to collect their pocket money from him. There are countless other families that depend on these poor little blighters who hawk things around or look after ailing parents.

    It is time that this devious country came out with a definitive statement on child labour. It is wrong, wicked and inhuman and people should be compelled not to do it. I once came across a child, who could not be much older than four years, wandering around the roads and highways hawking some nonsensical thing or the other and I wondered if the value of what he hawked was equal to his life. His parents seemed to think so, or else he would not be out on the roads. Children should please be allowed to be children: learning about life through school and play, play and school, in those orders.

  • What not to do with the children…

    Nigerian children are under siege and it’s mainly because the country has no respect for them

    This week, reader, I am sharing tales of woe. Have you noticed that when a new leaf is in the birthing process, it is protected by the old ones in any number of ways: supported, surrounded or downright cocooned in pristine conditions? Have you also noticed that the new-shorn leaf, delicate, green and, oh so beautiful, often comes out closest to the top facing upwards so it can receive more sunlight than the other old leaves on the branch? I don’t know about you, but I have noticed that should you come near the whelp of a dog, you will need more than a prayer to escape the leap and bound of the mother.

    By some strange coincidence also, I seem to have noticed that western countries have sooooo many laws in place to protect their wee ones. Sir/Ma’am, you may not put the child in the front seat, thank you; you must put the child in a baby carrier facing backwards as you drive; you may not leave the child hungry, cold or without a bed, etc.; and yes sir/ma’am, you have to give the child his/her own room or you go to prison to cool your obstinate head, thank you. I don’t know if it is the same principle of protection that exists in the tree, lion, dog, western countries, etc., or if it is just a coincidence; whatever it is, I tell you, that bug has not bitten the Nigerian.

    What I consider to be the eighth wonder of the world is the complete disregard this nation has for her children. It baffles me endlessly. I find it so incredible that since this nation’s government woke up a long time ago, thought long and hard and declared that parents should send their children to school, it promptly washed its oily hands off the matter. So, till today, this very unmotherly nation has consigned her children’s welfare into the hands of the unholy alliance of inattentive parents, poverty-battling teachers, and now boko haram.

    So, around here, we watch with insouciance as children are transported around by ignorant mothers and fathers in the front seats of vehicles, sometimes even sharing the driving wheel with daddy, all the while giggling. Naturally, that puts the little tots in the first position to be thrown out through the windscreen when a crash occurs; that is, if they don’t hit their tiny little heads on the driving wheel first. I say, we watch as traffic wardens see these wonderful sights and pass such vehicles on, even smiling and waving to those stupid mothers and fathers. I don’t believe any nation could more unkindly put her offsprings under siege.

    That’s not all. One of the sights that get my goat anytime is seeing children being moved around the nation on motor bikes that we call Okadas. It practically sinks this country below soil level anytime I see children in their twos or threes propped gingerly behind an Okada rider. Sometimes, I see a pregnant woman, or a woman with a child strapped to her back, riding on those death-is-waiting traps. Honestly, those things risk the children’s limbs and bones, apart from waking up the national shame or shamelessness.

    Wait, reader, there’s more. Take a trip to any public primary or secondary school classroom and see how our children are crammed into a tiny learning space; and you will leave wondering how there ever can be any space for learning. The seating arrangements actually befuddle the brain for the children are seated so closely together that they practically exchange air. You guessed it; the supply is higher than the demand. Somewhere along the line, even the principals have forgotten the exact number of children those rooms were originally built for; so everyone has to use what is available in space and resources.

    Wow now, did you say there is an alternative? Oh yes, there is: for some children, it is to be catapulted abroad by indulgent parents; for most other children, it is to be consigned under the good ol’ Baobab tree. Under the tree would sound idyllic in this hot African sun, but then come the rain, thunder and lightning. So, you see, most of our young ‘uns find themselves between the devil and the deep sea while the policy makers find themselves ensconced within the deep recesses of leather chairs in air-conditioned rooms. And I am telling a national story, believe me.

    As if all these were not enough, Nigerian children have to bear even more indignities. Listen as I tell you, many sociopathic and psychopathic parents there are who have now taken to killing off the poor young things in their care under some erroneous belief that those children are possessed by witchcraft or are preventing the progress of the lazy, self-indulgent parent. Just a few days ago, I read of a soulless pair of parents who killed their twelve-year-old child for having the temerity to complain that he was hungry, and they kept the body under their bed.

    According to the report, the pair had been in the habit of beating the child, once to a coma, and had been arrested by the police for it, but no one had taken the child from them. And that’s just it. We know a welfare department exists in our ministries of Youth, Sports, etc., presumably run by sociologists, to do just that. NOW, WHY ARE THEY NOT EFFECTIVE IN THIS COUNTRY? WHY CAN THEY NOT BE POSITIONED TO SAVE YOUNG CHILDREN FROM SUCH SOCIETAL ABUSE? Why is this Nigerian society not protecting and supervising the growth of its young ones like the tree is doing its own?

    It gets worse. Now, the Nigerian society has taken to abducting children for political and commercial ends. For years now, news media have regaled us with stories of how young people are abducted and sold into slavery to be bought by unconscionable, wealthy western and Arab men and women in need of sex or domestic slaves. I mean, that just boggles the imagination. Unfortunately, the market appears to be yawning and getting more and more widened. I cannot shake off the feeling that the Chibok girls abducted over seven weeks ago were meant to be used not only for political ends but for commercial purposes also. But, as they say, hope springs eternal on their eventual safe return.

    Clearly, Nigerian children are under siege, and it’s mainly because the country has no respect for them. Daily, many children are taken through the grind of social and psychological torture by their parents who refuse to feed them, or ask them to hawk some silly ware or the other before they go to school or even before they can be fed breakfast. My fellow countrymen and women, these things need not be so. There is no reason to take children through psychological traumas in the exercise of the power of protection that we parents and society have over them. As they say, there is no dictatorship in this world that can match that of a parent over his/her child. We parents should do well to remember that with such great power comes great responsibility. Just as an overindulged child soon comes to grief, so also will an unprotected child soon come to ruin. Unfortunately, a ruined child makes a ruined society.

    True, our leaders right now do not appear to care about the society even though the effects of ruined children are all around us. Look no further than boko haram members. They are the children of yesterday in whose lives there was no social welfare intervention, whose parents, where such existed, did nothing to protect them. Do we want to keep replicating them? It is time now to take the children seriously. If the inanimate tree can get it, then why can’t we Nigerians?